Struggling with debt? Ask a debt adviser a question

Hello,

Thanks for your post.

Depending on the solution presented for your circumstances, where you have debts it can often be a good idea to move to a basic bank account with a bank you don’t have any debts with. This would mean making sure your income is coming into the new basic bank account and setting up your essential direct debits to be paid from this account.

As you’ve mentioned, you’ll already have a financial link with your wife due to the current account and mortgage. You can certainly ask Santander if they would be willing to remove your wife’s name from the joint account but it is incredibly unlikely that they would agree to remove either of your names from the account whilst it’s overdrawn.

I can see from other posts you’ve written that you’ve completed our online Debt Remedy tool and we’ve suggested a debt management plan (DMP) for you. If your wife is able to pay the contractual payments or make an agreement on her own to repay the overdraft then you can exclude this from the plan. However you will not be able to make payments directly to the overdraft outside of the DMP as your other creditors could view this as preferential payment and it could compromise their willingness to agree to your plan.

The joint overdraft cannot be excluded in any formal debt solution such as; bankruptcy, debt relief orders (DRO) or individual voluntary arrangements (IVA).

If your wife would struggle to maintain payments to the overdraft on her own and if she also has other creditors it may actually be best to seek joint debt advice in order to resolve the overall debt situation.

If you’ve completed Debt Remedy and have any further questions or have had any problems using the online tool please do not hesitate to contact the Debt Remedy team on 0800 197 1704. We’re available Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm and Saturdays 9am to 2pm.

I hope this helps.

Kirsty

Takealeap wrote: »

Hi. I tried to ask this question on one of the other threads but I got really muddled trying to put across what I meant. I've had a think and hopefully this time I'll be much more succinct.

My wife and i have a joint Santander current account used for all household direct debits (mortgage, utilities, insurances). This account has an £1800 overdraft which is 90% utilised.

We also have a joint Santander mortgage, and the direct debit is paid through the above joint current account.

I have personal credit card debt of approx 32k, 4k of which is on a Santander credit card.

My wife is also aware of my debts and their extent. Neither of us have ever missed any payments on ANY of our household bills or debt bills.

When entering some form of debt solution, I know part of the advice is to open a new, basic bank account, which I guess is to be used to pay all your bills from instead of the old account.

My question is, if I was to pursue a DMP or some other debt solution for my personal debts, what effect would it have on my wife, because the overdraft is a joint debt and this the account you are advised to move away from!

Obviously, she is associated with me financially through the mortgage and joint current account, and this would be appear on her credit file in some way.

Is there a way for me to have a DMP for my credit cards only and we just service our joint account as normal? Or am I able to remove my wife from the joint account so that the overdraft becomes my sole responsibility?

TIA